3 Hindu Mahasabha Functionary Arrested for Misbehaving

Chennai: A Hindu Mahasabha functionary and two lawyers, who were allegedly drunk, were arrested today on charges of misbehaving with the crew and passengers of a Chennai-bound flight before take-off from here last night.

Subhash Swaminathan, vice president of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha’s Tamil Nadu unit, and the two lawyers, were offloaded following the fracas which started after they allegedly began taking pictures of air hostesses with phone on the Indigo flight.

All the three were today produced before Judicial Magistrate, Rajavelu who remanded them in 14-day judicial custody. Earlier reports had said that the two lawyers were granted bail but the final order remanded them in judicial custody till December 3.

The accused had boarded the Indigo flight scheduled to leave for Chennai at 10.45 PM, police said. They allegedly took photographs of an air hostess, which was objected to by her.

A wordy quarrel reportedly broke out, as the pilot also intervened and asked the trio to behave properly, police said. The three passengers deleted the pictures following the crew’s “request” but when IndiGo security manager “debriefed the passengers” to maintain decorum on board in local language, “these passengers got verbally profane and threatened the airline staff,” according to the airline.

According to police, a majority of the passengers reportedly threatened to get down from the flight if the trio were allowed to travel in it.

An FIR was filed in the wee hours today against the three lawyers under IPC Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, police said.